The Realistic Observer

Saturday, September 10, 2016

The Clearest (No Spin) Summary of FBI Report on Hillary Clinton Email

Superbly detailed for those who want the nitty gritty.

The Takeaways. The Players. The Timeline.

Since this article refers to both President and Mrs. Clinton, they are sometimes referred to by their first names for clarity. Most of the information is from the FBI report. Some contextual facts and dates have been added.

The Takeaways

The FBI could not review all of the Hillary Clinton emails under investigation because:

The Clintons’ Apple personal server used for Hillary Clinton work email could not be located for the FBI to examine.

Various server backups were deleted over time, so the FBI couldn’t examine them.

After State Dept. notified Hillary Clinton her records would be sought by House Benghazi Committee, copies of her email on the laptops of her attorneys Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were wiped with BleachBit, and the FBI couldn’t review them.

After her emails were subpoenaed, Hillary Clinton’s email archive was also permanently deleted from her then-server “PRN” with BleachBit, and the FBI couldn’t review it.

Also after the subpoena, backups of the PRN server were manually deleted.

Even though the FBI did not have a complete record of Hillary Clinton’s emails on three unclassified personal servers, it found:

2,093 emails State Dept. currently classifies as Confidential or Secret. (State Dept. did not address what their classification was at the time they were sent.)

193 emails (81 separate email conversations) that were classified at the time they were sent, ranging from “Confidential” to “Top Secret/Special Access Program.”

68 of the 81 email chains remain classified today.

8 were Top Secret.

37 were Secret.

36 were Confidential.

7 were Special Access Program.

3 were Sensitive Compartmentalized Information.

36 were Not Releasing to Foreign Governments.

2 were Releasable Only to Five Allied Partners.

12 of the suspect email chains were not provided by Hillary’s attorneys. The FBI found them other ways.

March 11, 2009: Hillary is told there’s “intelligence concerning this vulnerability during her recent [Feb.] trip to Asia.” She acknowledges to Boswell that she “gets it.” March 2009: State Dept. official handling Hillary computer security issues, John Bentel, reportedly receives memo showing that Hillary’s private server was set to be installed at her NY home. Bentel would later tell FBI he didn’t know Hillary was using a personal account or server.

March 18, 2009: The server installed by Pagliano replaces the Apple, but Pagliano later tells FBI he didn’t transfer Hillary’s clintonemail.com account. The FBI could never locate or examine Apple server to determine facts.

Feb. 9, 2011: State Dept. staff again raises concerns about Hillary and staff using electronic devices in their offices.

April 2011: Hillary’s immediate staff is briefed again on cybersecurity threats.

May 2011: Hillary’s immediate staff is briefed again.

Aug. 30, 2011: Hillary requests a government device to replace her broken BlackBerry. After she’s told it would be subject to Freedom of Information Act records searches, no government device is issued.

2011: Memo from Hillary cautions State Dept. employees about security and records retention, and advises not to use personal email for government business.

March 9, 2015: Mills emails PRN and makes reference to the preservation request from Congress. A PRN technician would later tell FBI he doesn’t remember seeing it.

March 25, 2015:

PRN has conference call with Bill Clinton’s staff.

PRN technician later tells FBI that, at this point, he realized he’d forgotten to shorten Hillary’s email retention (that Mills requested in Dec. 2014), so he now deletes the Clinton archive mailbox from PRN and uses BleachBit to permanently delete files holding the emails.

FBI says one PRN technician gave three conflicting stories but acknowledged that, when he made deletions, he knew of Congress’ preservation request and knew he should not delete Hillary’s email data on PRN server.

The FBI says somebody also manually deleted backups of the PRN server during this time frame. Clinton and Mills say they were unaware of these deletions.

March 31, 2015: There’s a conference call among PRN, Kendall and Mills. Later, PRN would exert attorney-client privilege and refuse to comment on conversation. This means Hillary’s attorneys are representing the PRN technician, too.

May 27, 2015: In a Freedom of Information (FOI) lawsuit, the court orders State Dept. to post emails on FOI website on a monthly schedule to complete by Jan 29, 2016. (State completes Feb 29, 2016.)

Aug. 2015:

FBI obtains Pagliano server.

Williams & Connolly doesn’t disclose that there’s other related equipment, and that Hillary emails had been transferred to PRN server.

PRN says, at this time, it realizes it’s accidentally backing up its Hillary server on the cloud rather than just locally as the Clintons had directed. It discontinues the cloud backups.

Sept. 2015: Pagliano pleads the fifth before House Benghazi committee.

Oct. 3, 2015: After learning about additional Pagliano server equipment, and that Hillary emails had been transferred to PRN server, FBI obtains equipment and PRN server.

Oct. 16, 2015: Williams & Connolly provides 2 Hillary Blackberry devices to FBI but forensics finds no evidence they were ever connected to her personal servers. They do not contain their SIM cards or SD secure digital cards.

Jan. 7, 2016: FBI interviews Sid Blumenthal, who sent at least 24 memos currently classified “confidential” and at least one email classified as “Secret” at the time and currently to Hillary on unclassified system.

Feb. 22, 2016: Williams & Connolly tells DOJ it cannot locate any of the devices, so FBI was unable to examine the 13 mobile devices.

Feb 27, 2016: Jake Sullivan is interviewed by FBI. He says he’s not concerned emails with classified information that he sent to Hillary on unclassified system.

March 2016: Bentel declines to testify to Senate committee.

March 31, 2016: Guccifer is extradited from Romania to US.

April 5, 2016: FB interviews Human Abedin who sent at least one email classified as “confidential” to Hillary on her unclassified system.

April 9, 2016: Cheryl Mills is interviewed by FBI. She refuses to answer some questions under attorney-client privilege. She says she’s not concerned by her decision to send Hillary emails with information later deemed “classified” on her unclassified system.

May 25, 2016:

State Dept. Inspector General (IG) says under Foreign Affairs Manual, employees are required to conduct day to day operations using authorized information system.

IG says there’s “no evidence” Clinton sought approval to use her personal email account or private servers despite her obligation to do so

June 22, 2016: Pagliano pleads the fifth 125 times in deposition with conservative watchdog Judicial Watch.

June 27, 2016: Attorney General Loretta Lynch meets privately with President Clinton.

July 2, 2016: FBI interviews Hillary Clinton.

July 4, 2016: Hillary indicates that, as President, she would likely keep Lynch as attorney general.